It's a Big Building Full of Doctors...

...but that's not important, now.

What is important is that I took Mom to the ER Saturday. She didn't have the energy to get off the couch in the morning and kept saying, "I want to go to the hospital." So we called her doctor's office and got the on-call physician who said we could go now or wait until Monday but recommended we go now, so we did.

I do have to say that the admitting staff at Cape Coral Hospital Emergency Room are some of the nicest, friendliest, most helpful folk it has been my pleasure to run across in the medical profession. i talked to the screener who thought Mom was just the sweetest thing and offered to adopt her. True, we caught them at a slow point. Mom had to sign some paperwork and they were very understanding when she was too weak to finish her signature. They accepted her scrawl and let me finish the information part. After taking her history, we were told to return to the waiting room until an examination room was ready but before we could move a nurse came up and said, "I just saw the request pop up on my computer. Come this way. We have a room ready for you." It was a long ride on the seat of her walker. We should have taken a real wheelchair.

We were there for most of the afternoon. They ran a battery of tests on her, but mostly she just lay on the examining couch being bored even though staff popped in on a regular basis to see how she was doing. The tests all came back reasonably normal. They gave us a hard copy and we went home. In the parking lot on the way to the car Mom said, "Well whose idea was that, anyway?" I told her it was the doctor's idea. She would've vehemently denied it if I had said it was her own.

I made dinner and we made plans to call her doctor first thing Monday morning.

The Open Road

I am pleasantly surprised to notice the number of cars out on the road with their windows rolled down, almost ten per cent by my rough estimate. Considering it's 78F before sunrise and 95F or more after and 90+ humidity all day. And it's not just older vehicles, either (although even the oldest cars have air-conditioning down here). Several were newer SUVs.

Are there that many Floridians concerned about the mileage differential? Or Freon (sorry, tetrafluoroethane) usage? Or are they just the real natives who don't notice the heat/humidity and enjoy the wind in their faces?

Fun With Pills, the Final Chapter

Mom and I have agreed for her to stop taking this latest prescription, the one that took her legs out from under her. She's supposed to be taking two pills a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, but she's been cheating and only taking one a day, either a.m. or p.m. Even so, they've been knocking her out. since she started on them I've noticed a definite physical weakening, loss of energy and diminished reasoning. It's scary watching her deteriorate like this.

Last night she took a pill and confessed it was the first time she'd taken the prescribed dosage, one in the morning and one at night. She could barely stand. It took several attempts with both hands and me helping to get her off the couch. I had to help her into the bathroom (she managed to get back out on her own, which surprised me since I had pushed her walker in there and didn't think she could reach the door with it in the way). She went directly to bed from there without watching the end of the ballgame and I had to help her with her pajamas. She told me to leave her door open until I went to bed. I told her we weren't going to take any more of those pills.

This morning, she got up on her own, and could carry on a coherent conversation. Her voice is much stronger and she seems to have more energy (this is obviously a relative concept). She is very relieved not to be taking this prescription any longer. I will be calling the doctor to explain the situation. We have an appointment next week.

Ice Cream, Mangoes & Mom

Mom's getting weaker. She hardly walks anywhere now without the walker. Today she changed her mind about going down to the end of the driveway to get the mail. She's also forgetting more words and having more trouble putting sentences together. (When she originally said she wanted to get the mail, I said "If you're up for it," and she was unable to parse that.)

She asked if she could have some of "my" ice cream (a "big favor") and I reminded her that it is "our" ice cream and she can have as much as she wants whenever she wants. She had tired herself out peeling and chopping mangoes. We're getting a nice crop this year and every morning, especially after a titanic thunderstorm like last night, there are a few more on the ground. I fixed her a dish of the chocolate chip cookie dough because she doesn't like plain chocolate.

This weakness and confusion has accelerated/become more noticeable since she started the new medication. I'm going to ask the doctor if that might be contributing. I really hate to see her deteriorating so quickly.

Hawk's Breakfast

Haven't mentioned hawks recently because, since about the last mention, they have all disappeared, gone north I presume, where there is more temperature variation and thus better thermals to ride. So I was surprised to see on one of my walks recently a hawk perched on the shingled roof of a house calmly tearing apart his feathered breakfast. He was surrounded by a disapproving chorus of smaller birds (also on the roof but safely out of range). He did not let their raucous insults disturb his dining experience.

Saw him again this morning, perched on an electric line. Fourteen/eighteen inches head-to-toe, two feet head-to-tail tip. Far too large to look comfortable on a wire. I walked right under him. He was staring intently at a nearby tree and, again, a number of smaller birds had set up a perimeter around him and were sending out warnings. No doubt there's a nest in that tree.

Suburban Zombie Dog-Walking Lady, Part 3

I have discovered the lair of the zombie dog-walking lady. It's at the furthest point of my walk before I begin the loop back. I have varied the timing of my walks (more by accident than design) and--arriving early one morning--discovered it standing by the circular drive, still, unmoving, looking for all the world like a giant, white, overweight, female jockey boy statue holding the reins to the dog. (So, just like one of those obnoxious jockey boy statues except for the giant, white, overweight female part.) It did not move an inch as I went past.

The house is strange but in a very subtle way. It is single story, as so many others in the neighborhood are, but with a roof that rises to the level of a two story structure without gables or skylight. It also has a half turret appendage attached to the back. (The back abuts an empty lot which in turn faces another road that is part of my walk so I can, between the two see the entirety of the place.) It can not be hollow under those huge eaves. No one would be crazy enough to heat or cool all of that empty space.

Since no house in south Florida has a basement, the water table being far too high, the only logical conclusion is that the reanimation lab is tucked up under the roof, invisible to the casual observer.

I have never seen lights on in this place, nor a car in the driveway. Since any closer inspection will involve either deception or trespass, I am not sure where to take the investigation from here.

The Anti-Feng Shui House

There is a house along the route of my morning walk which has, for it's front yard, a planting of trees and shrubs which is almost but not quite perfectly misaligned, misplaced, mis-spaced and mis-selected to produce not just a space that is impossible to appreciate--or use--but impossible even to walk by without an inward shudder for the lack of artistry, design--grace even.

I say "almost but not quite perfectly" because to say otherwise would imply intent, consciousness and awareness to the planter of this monstrosity. And there was a planter. This is not a happenstance of nature. Nature, indifferent though it may be, is natural. There is nothing natural in this layout*. The precise misplacement of each item proclaims its anti-naturalness. Yet there is a sincerity to the place that precludes one from proclaiming "Here be Irony!"

*Besides, when this town was originally laid out, the entire peninsula was scraped down to the limestone. Perhaps one in 10,000 of the original trees was spared.